Della and Angelina talked among themselves for a moment and Della said “Ah believe ah will.” Then she said: “Does you all know Phil Green? He lives about two miles and a half down the Junction City Highway and he is a hoodoo man. He can tell you all things efn you all cares to go ahll go with you. He can tell you what is gwianter happen and what has happened and he can hoodoo.” Of course we were in for going right then while we had a car so Della crawled in the back seat and we were away to Phil Green’s. Went out the highway about two miles and turned off on a country road. Up hill and down, around this field and that and through a big gate, winding around through a field and orchard. At last we arrived. Phil Green looked to be a prosperous farmer. We drove up to the back of the house and around front. Some negro had just killed a chicken for dinner. Several cars were parked in the yard. One bore a Louisiana license. The porch was full of negroes. Della called and asked if Phil was there. They replied that he was but that he was busy. Della said, “We wants to see him” and a black negro woman came out to the car. My, but she was furious. We had never seen a negro so angry before. The first thing she did was to tell us that they didn’t serve white people but the way she expressed it was a scream she said: “We don’ use white people. No suh! We don’ use em. Hits too dangerous. Ah don’t care who tole you Phil used white people. He don’. He is may husban and ah won’t let him.”
We soon pacified her by telling her that we appreciated her point of view and that it was perfectly alright with us. Della crawled out of the car right now and said: “You all knows the way back to town don’ you? Ah’s going ter stay.”
The next morning we went back to Della’s. She told us that the people on Phil’s front porch were from Marion Louisiana and they had come to get him to tell them how to get one of the men of the family out of the penitentiary. She apologized for taking us out there and declared that she believed that he once served white people.
Aunt Dilcie Raborn and all her family declared that she would be a hundred this August. She is an ex-slave and Mr. John Wright of Louisiana was her master.
“Yas’m chillun I’se a hunnerd years ole. Ah was one of the las’ young niggers on marster’s plantation. Mah job was nusin the chillun. Ole Marster’s father was livin in them days and he fought in the Resolution War. Yasum he did. He was rail old and my mother chawed fer him jes like she did fer her baby. I’se seen more hardness since I got old than ah ever did in mah life. Slavery wuz the easiest time of all. Mah muthas name was Charity and she wuz the family cook, yasum an ah wuz the nuss girl. I tuk care of the chilluns. Ole marster’s wife lost her mind and they had to watch her all the time. Did you ask they send her to the sylum? No man Thar warn’t no sylums in them days and anyway ole marster had plenty of niggers to wait on her and take care of her and watch her sos she wouldn’t git out and git hurt. She did slip out one time and ah was totin the flour from mill from the gate to the kitchen and she grabbed hit away fum me and throwed hit all ovah me and rubbed hit in mah face good and then laughed at me. Then she run and got in the creek and set down in the watah and the niggas had to git in thar and git her out. Hit made her sick and old marster sho did git them niggers fer lettin her git out.
“I sho wish all times could be slavery times. Ah had everything nice then.
“I had some chillun. Ah cant count em but ah can name em. Joe, Habe, Abram, Billy, Johnny, Charity and Caline. Ah makes mah home here with Charity, she is mah baby chile and she is fifty.
“You asks is ah afeard of haints? Ah’v never taken no frightment off’n em. Ah’v lived in houses other folks couldn’t live in but ah’v never lived that way that I had to run from haints.
“Ah lived jes like a millionaire when ah lived in slavery times, seed more hardness since I got old than I ever did in mah life.”
Then we left aunt Dilcie with her snuff and went to find Aunt Jane Carter.